Watching Your Life: Meditation Simplified and Demystified

by Teja Anand

"Watching Your Life" - Meditation Simplified and Demystified is your introduction to the easiest, most powerful form of meditation anyone can practice and gain benefits from instantly. With a grasp of the essence of meditation that has been called "unsurpassed," lifelong meditation teacher and awakening guide Teja Anand leads you out of the quagmire and confusion of the profusion of meditation styles, clarifying meditation's true intention in reality, along with the easiest, most effective practice in clear, non-mystical language and accessible, down-to-earth instructions.

118 pages, Paperback

Published June 30, 2019

Reviews

[Sukanya Viswanathan]

Brilliant, succinct, practical guide to the distilled essence of meditation. It is obvious that the author is so well aware of every little mind trick and technique. He shows the easy non resistant way of least friction in continuing with the resting in Beingness despite the noises of the mind.

This part resonated with the right nonserious attitude towards meditation:
"If trying to still your thought-stream and quiet your mind is an endless battle, watching your mind means the battle is instantly over and you’ve already won. Your thoughts can only effect your meditation and mess with your life if you identify with them, if you think that’s you doing all that inner chatter. If you observe them as a neutral witness, they’ve lost their power over you. “Lots of thoughts are pouring through my mind. I am just noticing, I am fine. Ho hum, here comes even more thoughts, they seem to be increasing rather than decreasing. I am just noticing, I have no problem with that.” That is how you should meditate. Just enjoy watching the show. If you rest in the witness and just watch it all"

Highly recommend.

[Bejinha]

Short and one of the best meditation books.

[Vinayagamoorthy Kuppusamy]

This is one of the best books I have read on meditation. And this is the best I have read in terms how simple the method is to medidate. This fit me well in that sense.

[Dr. Richard Walsh]

So simple

Probably the best book I have read to date describing the way of meditation.
Why did I used to think it so difficult ?

[stephen cuthew]

Gets straight to the point

An excellent guide to mediation. It takes away all of the clutter surrounding meditation. Just sit, watch and be aware. What could be easier.

[Andras]

Teja is a false teacher, despite the fact that he claims to be a "non-teacher." He advertises his one-on-one sessions and retreats. He is a neo-Advaita teacher, which is basically a bastardization of traditional Advaita.
Examples of false neo-Advaita teachings:
There are erroneous non-dual teachings mainly among neo-advaita when they claim 
1. “You are not the body, you are the Self.”
Why it’s dualistic: This implies a split between the body and the self. While pedagogically useful, it sets up a duality between what you “are” and what you “are not,” reinforcing separation.
True non-duality: In direct realization, there’s no body or Self as separate entities—there’s only what-is, undivided.
2. “You must dissolve the ego to realize the Self.”
Why it’s dualistic: It implies a process, a separate “you,” and a goal (“Self”) to be reached—clearly reinforcing subject-object duality.
True non-duality: The idea of an ego to be dissolved presupposes a self that has to do something. From a non-dual standpoint, no ego was ever real to begin with.
3. “Awakening happens to the individual and then there’s abiding non-duality.”
Why it’s dualistic: The very idea of a timeline or stages (“first awakening, then integration”) implies separation, process, and effort.
True non-duality: There’s no one to awaken and nothing to integrate—this is it, as it is, now.
4. “You must meditate to realize your true nature.”
Why it’s dualistic: It Suggests a separate doer (you) taking an action (meditating) to attain something (realization). This is the classic means-end structure of dualism.
True non-duality: Your true nature is always already the case; effort to realize it paradoxically conceals it.
5. “There is no self, only awareness.”
Why it’s dualistic: It sets up a new duality—awareness vs. self. “Awareness” becomes a subtle stand-in for a higher self or entity.
True non-duality: Even the distinction between awareness and phenomena collapses. There is no “awareness” of anything—just what-is.
6. “Everything is One”
Why it’s dualistic: The idea of “oneness” often implies that there are many things that have become one—still a hidden multiplicity.
True non-duality: There are not many becoming one; there are not even “things.” There’s no subject or object to be unified.
7. “Consciousness is all there is.”
Why it’s dualistic: This reifies “consciousness” as a kind of ultimate substance and implies that phenomena are “within” it.
True non-duality: Even “consciousness” is too much—any concept implies division. True non-duality transcends both materialism and idealism.
8. “You are the witness.”
Why it’s dualistic: Sets up a subject (witness) and an object (witnessed). While it can be a useful stepping-stone, it’s not non-duality.
True non-duality: Even witnessing collapses—there’s no knower and known.
Teja's teaching is repetitious paroting of the absolute while ignoring the dualistic world we live in and striving for liberation. We cannot ignore laws of physics or metaphysics while we are living in the body. No amount of parroting that "it is all a dream" will change it (no matter how absolutely true it is). We aspirants must be cognizant of discrimination of the absolute and relative reality. Teja also meditates while claiming that there is no "doing" that can help awakening. Paradoxically it is true, however a certain mind is absolutely necessary. Not everyone is ready and will be successful. Teja claims that he is enlightened; paradoxically, he also says we all are (as our true nature). So why brag of something so insignificant if we all are attained? He has a demonstrable ego as a cultist. I know because I have attended one of his retreats.